- Peter Dutton
- Any prizewinners here?
In the New York Times yesterday author Ann Patchett, now also a bookstore owner in Nashville, inveighed against the failure of the Pulitzer judges to choose a fiction winner this year. Some publishers and booksellers chimed in, too—they say the Pulitzer’s good for business, good for fiction, a balm to the self-image of a struggling industry. (“The fate of an entire industry seems to hang on the fate of every book, and the feeling is perfectly understandable,” the New Republic’s Leon Wieseltier said.) Patchett sees two possible reasons for the nondecision: either the judges just didn’t like any of the books well enough, or they weren’t able to come to a consensus about which should be the winner.